"It's a combination of education and business opportunities and because we are so close to New York City," Hutchinson said. "Our university system is wonderful in Connecticut and there is an availability of jobs. Women have opportunity here and they take advantage of it."

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Hutchinson added that female politicians can thank their predecessors for paving the way.

"We have a history of strong women in strong positions," she said referring to
Ella T. Grasso
, who in 1974 became the state's first woman governor.

"We also have great private colleges throughout the state and we're next to two very large financial centers, New York being the most prominent, and Boston, and we have our own cities that are centers in their own right: Danbury, New Haven, Hartford, Bridgeport," Hutchinson said.

"If you combine our availability to a fine education with the proximity to good jobs, I think women will naturally gravitate to higher positions," Hutchinson said.

Lucie Voves
, a Danbury entrepreneur from Oklahoma, pointed out key differences between growing up in her native state and growing up here. While growing up in Oklahoma, she said few women went to college.

"I think the education system here gears women for it," said Voves, who owns Church Hill Classics, a diploma and award framing business.

The 1986
Dartmouth College
graduate said when she left Oklahoma to attend New Hampshire's Dartmouth, her classmates thought she was strange because most students didn't leave the state to attend college.

"More people were interested in getting married, having a family," said Voves.

More Oklahoma households, had only one parent working and fewer dual-income parents, she said.

Voves, who lives in Ridgefield, suspects women do well in Connecticut because they need to support themselves and their families.

"It's the cost of living. A lot of people simply have to be a two-person working family," Voves said.

"Connecticut is a state that has been very conducive to women working," said
Heidi Hartmann
, the research group's president, who did her doctoral work at Yale. "It has a white-collar economy. Finance, including insurance, is a big industry for women."

The report found 38 percent of Connecticut's employed women hold managerial or professional jobs, the fourth-highest percentage in the nation. Connecticut women were paid, on average, $35,800 during 2001 and 2002 - the third highest salary in the country.

Despite those successes, the study found Connecticut women earned 71 percent of men in comparable jobs. That's the seventh-lowest ratio in the country.

Minnesota, Washington and Oregon rounded off the report's top five best states for women. Mississippi was rated the worst state, followed by South Carolina, Kentucky, Oklahoma and Arkansas.

The report and its rankings are based on assumptions with which some women's groups disagree.

The study contends women are better off in the workplace than at home. Sixty-two percent of Connecticut women are in the work force, slightly above the national average.

"It's a slightly sticky issue, but our way of looking at it is, when women work it brings them a level of independence that they don't have when they don't work," said
Amy Caiazza
, the study's director.

Others said the percentage of working women is a misleading number, one that ignores women who are in college or who opt to stay home to raise their children.

"It's operating in a vacuum. That particular number could be a sign of a good thing or a bad thing," said
Joanne Brundage
, executive director of Mothers and More, a group supporting stay-at-home moms.

Brundage said the report essentially ignores mothers by ranking salaries of only full-time workers. Most mothers do not work full-time, she said, so some of the best states for working women may not be the best states for mothers.

That's an important omission, she said, since most women become mothers.

The study also ranks states as worse for women if their elected officials do not support abortion rights, even if the voters of that state oppose abortion.

Connecticut benefited from the number of women holding elected office, including Gov.
M. Jodi Rell
and Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz.

Redding
First Selectman Natalie Ketchum
said she believes, "we consistently set high standards in the public and private sector. It's to everybody's advantage,"

"A smart state recognizes and promotes that," Ketchum said. "I do believe we would be considered a smart state. We have a state that has valued education."

Ketchum thinks Connecticut ranks so high because "we are a well-educated and progressive state."
Contact Karen Ali